One of the major players of the global meat industry comes under the spotlight. Brazil is always near the top of the list when it comes to production and exports, and it’s a nation that other countries pay close attention to. This special focus on Brazil looks at some of the top news stories to come out of the country’s meat sector over the past few weeks.

ABPA calls for swift solution to BRF exports embargo: The Brazilian Association of Animal Protein (ABPA) has expressed confidence that “immediate and effective solutions” will be put in place by the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food Supply in order to resume BRF exports to the EU following recent revelations… Read

Brazil: Focus on sustainability: Brazil has hit the headlines once again for the wrong reasons but while one processor is under investigation, the entire meat industry is working to make the sector sustainable for the future… Read

This comes from one of those daily food-industry newsletters I subscribe to, in this case NutraIngredients.com. It occasionally focuses on regions and I thought this collection of articles was of interest. Do Latin Americans need dietary supplements? Just asking.

Welcome to NutraIngredients’ first quarterly supplement focusing on the Latin American dietary supplements and functional food markets. In this edition, we look at the changing regulatory landscapes across the region, including a deep dive into how Brazil is creating a distinct category for supplements. We’ll also look at a supplement start-up and opportunities for omega-3s in LATAM.

Florida start-up CareMundi brings US supplements to Brazilian buyers:In the dietary supplement world, Brazil is notorious as being a tough market to get into. But there is demand for US-made products in the country, and one-year old start-up CareMundi, an online sales platform, is providing a bridge for US supplement makers into Latin America’s largest consumer market… Read

Bowing to pressure from the local food manufacturing industry and importers via their lobbyists,
the Health Ministry on Wednesday decided to postpone implementation of reform it initiated last
year to mark food packages with red or green circles that will indicate whether or not the food is
healthful.
Instead of these designations being required in March 2018 as initially proposed, they will be
mandatory on only some products from January 2020. Requirements will become a bit stricter a
year later.

Here’s my prediction: front-of-package labels will be a big international deal this year and I will be writing about them often.

Hat tip to Bernard Epel of Tel Aviv University for forwarding this information.

A colleague in France, Serge Hercberg, a nutrition professor at the University of Paris writes to say that the French government’s decision on October 31 to support voluntary adoption of a “Nutri-Score” front-of-package label is now under attack by the food industry.

Nutri-Score looks like this (A is nutritious, lower grades less so):

The food industry wants something like this (of course it does, nobody can possibly understand it):

My colleague writes:

However,a powerful trade group, which includes major manufacturers of breakfast cereals, candies and cookies, is encouraging its members to instead select another type of nutrition al label. The trade group’s position is aligned with that of six food conglomerates – Mars, Mondelez, Nestlé, Coca-Cola, Unilever et PepsiCo (known as the “Big 6”) – who announced in March that they intended to develop an alternative system for the European Union.

With his nutritionist colleague, Chantal Julia, he describes in The Conversation what this fight is about. I particularly like their example of how the two schemes help (or do not help) consumers choose between a yogurt and a fruit puree.

Each goal has specific sub-goals. These are listed here in interactive format. Food comes up in several, but mainly in Goal 2 (End Hunger) and a bit in Goal 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production). Here are the first three sub-goals for Goal 2:

The SDGs have sparked many organizations to take action. The U.N. makes taking small actions easy for individuals by producing “The Lazy Person’s Guide to Saving the World“—things you can do from your couch, your home, or outside your home.

Lunch in the old Yemenite section of Tel Aviv, now the up-and-trendy Kerem Ha Teymanim.

The restaurant is Shlomo Doron’s The Joy of the Wipe. This doesn’t quite get at the meaning, which is what you do to eat hummus with pita bread.

The restaurant is near the Carmel Market. These are great bowls of dates, dried fruits, and nuts.

Entire stalls are devoted to halvah, the candy made with sesame seed paste.

I did a day trip to the completely improbable Rutenberg restaurant: unexpectedly lovely food in a place remote from major cities, next to ruins of an electric plant and a bridge that used to cross the Jordan “river” (now a brackish small stream). The restaurant is smack on the border with Jordan, 200 feet below sea level, and 45 degrees centigrade (112 degrees Fahrenheit—I’m not kidding) on the afternoon I visited. The far end of the nearby stone bridge is in Jordan, and so is the watchtower on the hill in the back.

Beautiful food.

The chefs with a portrait of the eponymous Rutenberg, who had something to do with the nearby electric plant, now in ruins.

If ever there were a destination restaurant, this is it. Camels, maybe, but foot traffic? Hence: improbable.